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Advocacy
ICBA Introduces Plan for Prosperity Targeting Regulatory Burden
ICBA launched the Plan for Prosperity,
its policy platform for the 113th Congress that will promote a regulatory-relief agenda for community banks and thrifts. A flexible set of legislative priorities designed to support bipartisan congressional advancement and adaptability, the Plan for Prosperity offers detailed policies to ease excessive, redundant and costly regulations on community banks and thrifts.
The Plan for Prosperity is not a single bill,
but a flexible, living document that can be quickly adopted as legislation. It includes key provisions of the Communities First Act—ICBA’s comprehensive regulatory-relief legislation introduced in the 112th Congress. However, its more flexible and streamlined approach as a policy platform instead of a large piece of legislation will improve its chances of making its way through Congress.
The
Plan for Prosperity includes high-priority provisions to exempt community banks from mortgage-lending reforms, improve bank exam accountability, and offer relief from auditing expenses. Provisions of the plan already introduced in the 113th Congress would exempt community banks from proposed municipal advisor regulations, offer relief from redundant privacy notice requirements, reform the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure and apply new Securities and Exchange Commission deregistration thresholds to thrifts.
More details on ICBA’s Plan for Prosperity are available in a comprehensive fact sheet and in frequently asked questions. Read ICBA Release. Read
ICBA Fact Sheet. Read ICBA FAQs.
Advocacy
ICBA Announces Concerns with QM Rule
ICBA publicly announced
its concerns with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rules on qualified mortgages. ICBA said the CFPB should adjust the rules to ensure community bank customers and communities can continue to pursue the American dream of homeownership.
“Community banks have always been responsible home mortgage lenders and did not participate in lending abuses that drove the financial crisis,” ICBA President and CEO Camden R. Fine said in a news release. “The CFPB should modify its final rule on qualified mortgages to ensure continued access to the mortgage market for Main Street communities.”
In its comment letter to the bureau,
ICBA said it is concerned that the exemptions for community bank loans do not cover nearly enough community banks, which could drive them out of the market. Among its recommendations, ICBA said the bureau should expand the definitions of “qualified mortgage” and “rural” to include more loans and extend the safe harbor conclusive presumption of compliance for community bank mortgage loans held in portfolio.
ICBA recently launched an educational webpage to provide details of CFPB’s mortgage-lending rules. The webpage includes summaries of the final rules and links to the rules themselves. It also links to a proposal to amend the final qualified mortgage rule to add an additional special QM category for community bank portfolio loans.
Read ICBA Comment Letter. Read ICBA Release. Visit ICBA’s Mortgage Webpage.
Credit Unions
ICBA Reminds Congress of Costs of Credit Union Tax Exemption
With
members of the Credit Union National Association in Washington this week to discuss their policy agenda with members of Congress, ICBA is reminding lawmakers of the cost of credit unions’ tax exemption. In a message to members of Congress, ICBA noted that credit unions’ federal tax exemption is valued at more than $2 billion a year and has been identified as a growing tax expenditure by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congressional Budget Office.
ICBA also distributed its recent request calling on the CBO and JCT to calculate revenue cost estimates of legislation to increase the statutory cap on credit union member business lending. In a Feb. 20 letter
to the offices and to congressional leaders, ICBA noted that legislation recently introduced in the House (H.R. 688) would more than double the congressionally imposed cap from 12.25 percent of assets to 27.5 percent.
ICBA’s letter cited a 2010 CBO report that found that legislation to increase the cap to 25 percent would have an estimated revenue impact of $354 million over 10 years. The association wrote that new loans made by credit unions under the higher cap would displace loans made by taxpaying banks, which would reduce tax revenue to the government.
ICBA NewsWatch Today is sponsored by QwickRate:
Stop
by booth #256 to enter a free iPad mini-drawing and to check out our new Bank Performance Report Card at ICBA’s convention. Also, be sure to attend our workshop, “Basel III: What Does it Really Mean to Community Banks,” at 11:15 a.m. Tuesday in room Mouton 1. Contact us for more information at www.qwickrate.com.
Banking
FDIC-Insured Institutions Earn $34.7B in Q4
FDIC-insured
commercial banks and thrifts reported aggregate net income of $34.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012, a 36.9 percent improvement the same period a year ago, the agency said. It is the 14th consecutive quarter that earnings have registered a year-over-year increase, according to the Quarterly Banking Profile. Increased noninterest income and lower provisions for loan losses continued to account for most of the improvements.
For the full year, industry earnings totaled $141.3 billion—a 19.3 percent improvement over 2011 and the second-highest ever reported by the industry, after the $145.2 billion earned in 2006.
The
number of institutions on the FDIC's Problem List declined for a seventh consecutive quarter, from 694 to 651. Eight FDIC-insured institutions failed in the fourth quarter, the smallest quarterly total since the second quarter of 2008.
The Deposit Insurance Fund balance continued to increase. The audited DIF balance rose to $33.0 billion at Dec. 31 from $25.2 billion the previous quarter. The fund also received an additional $1.8 billion that had been previously set aside for debt guarantees under the FDIC's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. Estimated insured deposits grew 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter.
Congress
House Ag Committee Plans for New Farm Bill
The House Agriculture Committee unanimously adopted its annual budget letter to the House Budget Committee and said it would adopt a new farm bill this year. Ranking Member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) later told a group of farm organizations and ICBA that he expects the committee to begin deliberations on the farm bill in May and that most of the work has already been completed due to the committee’s adoption of a bill last year.
A letter from the Agriculture Committee to the budget panel highlights the committee’s determination to pass a bill this year and emphasized the importance of crop insurance.
“The
Committee’s main focus this year will be on reauthorizing the farm bill, which expires on September 30, 2013, and improving on the product the Committee passed last year,” it reads. “At numerous hearings, the Committee heard about the importance of the federal crop insurance program and how it must not be weakened, particularly since it has already experienced billions of dollars of cuts in recent years.”
Regulation
Fed Proposes Reserve Bank Rules for Financial Market Utilities
The Federal Reserve Board
released a proposed rule to set out the conditions and requirements for a Federal Reserve Bank to open and maintain accounts for and provide financial services to financial market utilities designated as systemically important by the Financial Stability Oversight Council.
The proposed rule would authorize a reserve bank to pay interest on the balances maintained by designated financial market utilities in accordance with the title and other terms and conditions as the Fed may prescribe.
The Fed is requesting public comment on all aspects of the proposed amendments to Regulation HH. Comments are due 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register.
Monetary Policy
Bernanke Cites Benefits, Risks of Easing
The Federal Reserve’s accommodative monetary policy has supported the economic recovery and higher employment rates, but it also has several potential costs and risks, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress. Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, Bernanke said that further expansion of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet could raise inflation expectations and that low interest rates could impair financial stability by increasing excessive risk-taking.
Congress
Senate Panel Advances Lew Nomination
The Senate Finance Committee advanced the nomination of Jack Lew for Treasury secretary. The panel voted 19-5 in favor of Lew, whose nomination will head for a vote from the full Senate. A full Senate confirmation vote for Lew could come as soon as today.
Economy
Case-Shiller: Home Prices Up 7.3 Percent in 2012
Home
prices increased 7.3 percent in 2012, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes. The 10- and 20-city composites reported respective annual returns of 5.9 percent and 6.8 percent in 2012, and they both posted monthly increases of 0.2 percent in December. As of the fourth quarter of 2012, average home prices are at autumn 2003 levels.
Economy
New-Home Sales Up 15.6 Percent
New-home sales rose 15.6 percent in January and were up 28.9 percent from a year ago, the Commerce Department reported. The median sales price of new houses sold in January 2013 was $226,400, and the average sales price was $286,300. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of January was 150,000, a 4.1-month supply at the current sales rate.
Economy
Consumer Confidence Up in February
Consumer confidence rebounded in February, increasing to 69.6 from 58.4 the month before, the Conference Board said. The index of the present economic situation increased to 63.3 from 56.2, while the expectations index improved to 73.8 from 59.9. The Conference Board attributed the rebound to an abatement in the “shock effect” caused by the fiscal cliff uncertainty and higher payroll taxes.
Marketing
Check Out the “I Luv My Community Bank” Campaign Video
A new video from ICBA’s Chris Lorence explains the “I Luv My Community Bank” campaign and how community banks and its customers can get involved. Submissions for the campaign, which is designed to promote the importance of community banks, are being collected via the campaign’s unique interactive website, the Facebook app,
and on Twitter (using the hashtag #ILuvMyCB).
Be sure to direct consumers and small businesses to see contest rules so that they can be eligible as one of the top 10 finalists. Stay tuned to ICBA’s Facebook page for more details. Watch the Video.
Sign Up Today!
In Depth
Vigilant Advocacy the New Normal
As the nation continues to right itself from one of the worst financial crises in decades, increasingly vigilant advocacy among the nation’s community banks has become a core business practice, according to a new exclusive on the ICBA Independent Banker
website. “It is incumbent on community bankers to recognize and develop ways to incorporate advocacy into their daily bank operations at all levels, and ICBA is here to assist you,” ICBA Director of Congressional Advocacy Brian Anderson writes. Read the Article.
Poll
This Week’s Quick Poll
Take this week’s Quick Poll
on in-school branches, and view results from the previous poll on microlending programs. View the Archive.
Education
ICBA Audio Call Next Week on Call Report Changes
ICBA is hosting an audio conference next week on the 2013 revisions to the call report. The audio conference, scheduled for 11 a.m. (Eastern time) Wednesday, March 6, will cover revisions due to accounting standards and regulatory guidance. Register Online.
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